Interested in small greeting card business ideas? If YES, here is how to start a greeting card startup with no money and no experience. How much does it cost to start up?

How to Start a Greeting Card Business

Have you sent a greeting card to someone before? Have you received a greeting card from someone before? Have you sent a gift with a greeting card included? How about receiving a gift with a greeting card attached to it? Do you know how to make your own greeting cards to sell?

Greeting cards have become a big deal because it is used for various occasions. As the use of greeting cards increases as the day passes by, the market wants of this cards also increases. It is something you should capitalize on by starting a home based greeting card business.

Now you may be wondering; How will you start a greeting card company. If that is your worries, worry no more because in this article, I’m going to show you how to start a greeting card company with a step by step guide.

GREETING CARD BUSINESS PLAN

Step 1: Go for Market Research

What do I mean by this? Going for a market research will help you identify your competitors and other greeting card business statistics. You will also know what kind of cards they are producing. In this step, you should notice what errors they are making on their greeting cards, or how you can improve your own greeting cards from what they are missing.

Step 2: Identify High Selling Genre

Just like we have high selling genre in music, same applies to a greeting card, there are also greeting cards with high selling genre. So, you need to ask yourself: What type of greeting cards are people buying, is it a holiday greeting card, a birthday greeting card, a graduation greeting card or an anniversary greeting card?

When you are able to identify the high selling genre of a greeting card, it will help you to produce greeting cards that will be acquired quickly.

Step 3: Identify Type of Cards to be Produced

Shen I talk about identifying the type of cards to be Produced, I’m referring to brainstorming. Yes! You may be wondering what type of brainstorming. Ok get me right here. You need to brainstorm on greeting card ideas for your company. This brainstorming involves thinking if a special message will be included in your greeting card. You need to study the latest greeting card design trends.

Remember you did a market research in step 1, and in that market research, you were able to note what you think was missing in the greeting cards produced by your prospective competitors. Hope you still remember? Good! So now is the time to make use of that information for the productivity of your own cards.

Do you get those missing information, add it to your cards and decide if you will make handmade greeting cards or have them printed.

If you decide that a particular greeting card should be printed, then follow how to go about it in the next step.

Step 4: Get a Printer for Your Cards

This should not come as a surprise to you. Remember you are starting a greeting card company, so you need to have an inkjet printer for cards you do not want yo produce using the handmade method. So getting your own printer isn’t a big deal, because it will reduce the cost of going to a printing station to have your cards printed. So take that step and have a Printer for your company.

In step 2, I talked about identifying high selling genre and sticking to it for success. Yes, this step 5 will come as an alternative. While making your cards, or brainstorming on what type of cards to make, you need to make variety of them. Don’t just limit yourself to a handmade greeting card or a printed card, or really sticking to a particular greeting card genre. Let me tell you why.

In as much as high selling genre will bring a quick progress to your company, you really need to make variety of cards. Remember, why you started a greeting card company is to meet demands. So thinking as your clients will help you to be adaptable while producing your cards.

You are serving your clients, so you need to make variety of this cards as their needs differ. For example, some of them may like cards that contain inspirational messages, others may like cards with funny greetings, still others may like cards that are either funny or inspirational.

So with that said, how will you meet demands when actually you are producing one particular card? This step is really a step to think about.

Step 6: Meet with Greeting Shop Owners

Yes! An important step, you are not producing greeting cards that will end in your company’s warehouse, isn’t it? So you need to step out of that building (company), and do what I will call a shop movement. Funny though, but it’s important. Do you know how to create a greeting card line?

Many prospective customers of yours may not know where a greeting card company is situated, but they do know where greeting cards shops are located. So with that known, what should you do as a greeting card producer? Like I said before, step out! Go to this shop owners, talk with them. Tell them what you do, and offer to keep your greeting cards with them in their shop, so buyers can locate it quickly.

Remember, you’re in for a business, so important steps must be taken to make it a success. You can offer percentage to these shop owners in a way that if a card is sold from their shop, they get a percentage from the sale made. This will make them happy to keep your cards in their shop, which will in turn bring more sales and awareness to the greeting card company.

Step 7: Open an Ecommerce Website

To be successful in your greeting card business is what is needed. So creating an ecommerce site will help accomplish this, because your cards can be booked and purchased on-line electronically.

Creating an ecommerce site will also make it convenient for a customer to sit at home and get a greeting card without going to the company or a shop, saving them the stress and this make them always patronize your company. Selling greeting cards online from home has never be easier.

When the above steps are followed, I assure you success in your greeting card company.